World Wide Web (WWW) generally comprises a multitude of computer servers having respective databases and a network by which client computing devices can communicate with the computer servers and request and load data. The client device typically uses a “web browser” program to request data, such as web pages, from remote computer servers. Whenever a web browser associated with a client device requests a web page, either by a user specifying a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or selecting a link in another web page, the web browser locates the server that stores the requested web page and loads the web page into the client device in the form of a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) file. The HTML file may comprise a specification of each component of the web page, such as HTML or Java code, text, graphics, embedded multimedia, links to other web page, etc. Web pages received by the browser may be stored or cached in a memory of the client device and displayed to the user.
Caching of web pages on the client device has number of advantages. It improves an overall access speed to the web page at the client device, because the browser may access the data associated with the web page directly from the client device (e.g., a browser cache), rather than re-requesting the page data from the server. In addition, caching of web pages may allow a user to repeatedly view information within a period of time without retrieving the web pages from the server each time. Moreover, caching of web pages allows an off-line viewing of the cached web pages by the user when a network connection to the server is not available.
However, over time, this caching process may significantly slow down the browser as more data is accumulatively saved to the browser cache. This is at least because the storage space of a browser cache is usually limited and a current use of the browser cache, which involves storage of large amount of web page data, such as code, text, graphics, multimedia, etc., may occupy a considerable amount of system memory space and computing resources thereby reducing the overall system performance. This becomes especially problematic for mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, which typically have less available memory and computing resources than personal computers, laptops and servers.
Additionally, updates to previously visited and cached web pages may become available in order to push a change or new feature. But when a same web page is requested for a second time, a web browser may speed up the display time by loading a cached version of the web page locally from the browser cache, which results in less than a current version of the web page being displayed. To make matters worse, anyone who may gain access to the same client device can tell from the browsing history what websites have been visited by the original user, and caching is not limited to web pages, but may also include login IDs, passwords, banking information, and other sensitive data. Therefore, periodic deletion of browser cache contents is desirable. Typically, browser cache contents are deleted automatically in a chronological order with the oldest contests being deleted first. However, it has been shown that this is not the most effective way of clearing browser cache as relevant web pages may be deleted first. It is, therefore, desirable to facilitate effective logical organization and management of a web browser cache, such that the cache may be efficiently cleared of old content in order to improve overall system performance of the client device.